Wiley - Numbers In Action

The godfather of grime is back. Although if you’ve been following his often hilarious Ustream channel, downloaded the hundreds of ‘zip files’ tracks he posted on Twitter, or followed his brief war with Dot Rotten, you know that he never really went away. However, in July he is releasing his first album proper since 2009’s ‘Race Against Time’ and the lead single taken from it is ‘Numbers In Action’.

Having pioneered the genre with his early eski beats and then going on to more mainstream success with track such as ‘Wearing my Rolex’ and ‘Cash in my Pocket’, his new song sits somewhere in between these achievements. The beats are uncluttered and the lyrics find Wiley making the case for his relevance, but the whole thing lacks any hooks that would see it trouble the top of the charts.

For the remixes that back the single, Sticky adds a hip hop vibe and bigger beat, whereas Toddla T and Roska collaborate under the name Toddska to create a more minimal but danceable house beat. Young producer Zdot ramps up the grime but doesn’t add enough to the mix to make his track stand out.

The track does put Wiley in a comfortable position. His followers in the grime scene are not going to have any problems with this song and it is radio-friendly enough to not offend pop fans. But it would be nice if his new album has at least one bigger single on it than this.